Revenue Management: A Path to Increased Profits

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Description: This book describes the emerging field of revenue management and its applications across a broad spectrum of business activity. It recounts the history and development of revenue management and add...

This book describes the emerging field of revenue management and its applications across a broad spectrum of business activity. It recounts the history and development of revenue management and addresses the analytical tools needed to integrate revenue management into management generally and financial and accounting practice in particular. The book discusses and assesses various pricing practices and other revenue management techniques. It gives particular attention to the role of capacity analysis and the connection of revenue management to the theory of constraints.

Preface
This book discusses the relatively new topic of revenue management from a general management viewpoint, and particularly brings ﬁnance and accounting perspectives to the subject. Revenue management is a set of techniques to inﬂuence customer demand for the products and services of an organization. Differential pricing is a primary revenue management tool. This book explores this emerging ﬁeld. It describes various types of pricing and other demandinﬂuencing techniques, and suggests approaches to evaluating and managing their effectiveness. Revenue management should be a task of every top executive. Focusing on growing the top line (revenues) is essential to the ultimate success of the bottom line (proﬁts). Familiarity with evaluating proposed revenue management actions and measuring the success of past revenue decisions should be part of the role of ﬁnancial and accounting managers. This book speaks to both audiences. Revenue management originated as a speciﬁc discipline in the mid1980s. Its origin is usually credited to American Airlines, who sought to develop pricing approaches to counter the competitive threat of new, low-fare carriers. After meeting its initial goals, revenue management (then known as yield management) continued to serve as a methodology to ﬁll as many unsold seats as possible. These techniques soon spread to other service industries that had characteristics similar to airlines, namely a ﬁxed and perishable service capacity, high ﬁxed costs, and demand that might be inﬂuenced by pricing. Revenue management has thrived in these service industries, such as hotels, restaurants, golf courses, theaters, and the like. Gradually, revenue management has moved beyond the service industries to become a management tool for all types of organizations, both business and not-for-proﬁt. This book provides a guide for the general manager, and for ﬁnance and accounting managers in particular, to this emerging area of management practice.

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PREFACE

Organization of the Book
Chapter 1 deﬁnes revenue management and places it in the structure of management topics, including its relationship to business strategy, marketing, ﬁnance, and accounting. Chapter 2 relates the history and development of revenue management and describes several early applications as well as more recent, emerging applications. Chapters 3 through 6 discuss analytical tools to help implement and evaluate revenue management decisions. Chapters 3 and 4 review basic economic, ﬁnancial, and accounting techniques that apply to revenue management, including contribution margin, cost structure, opportunity costs, and elasticities, in the context of analyzing and evaluating revenue management approaches. Chapter 5 focuses on the critical importance of capacity analysis, applying the CAM-I capacity model. Chapter 6 discusses the applicability of the Theory of Constraints to revenue management. Chapters 7 through 9 provide a review of elements of pricing, a variety of revenue management techniques that apply across a wide range of organizations, and the relationship of revenue management to providing customer value. Chapter 10 discusses ﬁndings on the reaction of customers to revenue management techniques. Chapter 11 considers the assessment of customer proﬁtability and the decision to retain customers. Finally, chapter 12 reviews revenue management decision making, and chapter 13 concludes with some views on the future development of revenue management. A set of references to the broad-ranging revenue management literature follows.

Acknowledgments
Thanks are due to Ken Merchant, the series editor, for his encouragement and support of this work. Cindy Durand provided expert editorial guidance. Several individuals read the manuscript and provided many helpful comments: • Mary Kay Copeland, consultant, corporate trainer, and academic • Sanford Gunn, retired professor of management accounting and my long-time colleague at the University at Buffalo • George Kermis, management accounting professor at Canisius College and an experienced lecturer in executive education; and Marguerite Kermis, psychology professor at Canisius College • James Largay, accounting professor at Lehigh University and my long-time coauthor Their comments have greatly beneﬁted the book; any remaining deﬁciencies are mine.

Comments Welcome
I welcome comments and experiences from readers. Contact me at rhuefner@buffalo.edu.

CHAPTER 1

Introduction to Revenue Management
Revenue management has been an area of practice for about 25 years, though it has made few inroads to the general management literature or particularly into the accounting and ﬁnance arena. This book brings together much of the work on revenue management to date and discusses it from a management and ﬁnancial analysis perspective. Revenue management should be a part of the focus of any executive; the analysis techniques should be in any ﬁnancial manager’s toolkit. One common approach to achieving revenue growth is to buy it— that is, via mergers and acquisitions. Indeed, growth by acquisition has been the strategy of a number of major companies. Although acquisition is a valid approach, it is not the focus of this book. We consider techniques for revenue growth by building the sales base of the existing organization, and measuring the success of that activity.

What Is Revenue Management?
Revenue management encompasses differential pricing and other techniques to inﬂuence customer demand for an organization’s products and services.1 As discussed more fully in chapter 2, revenue management began in the airline industry strictly as differential pricing, and then expanded to other industries—mostly in the travel and tourism ﬁelds—with similar economic characteristics to airlines. Eventually, both the techniques employed and the range of industries expanded, to the point where revenue management is now applied in a wide variety of organizations. Porter2 suggests that ﬁrms compete in one of two ways: by (a) running a low-cost operation and offering low prices or (b) “differentiation,” featuring a variety of product and service features that necessarily command

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higher prices. Walmart and Southwest Airlines fall in the ﬁrst category; they compete on the basis of low prices but with some limitations as to quality of merchandise, range of services, amenities, and the like. Brooks Brothers, Mercedes-Benz, and Tiffany are examples of companies that can differentiate their products and services as having superior quality and features. One may describe this framework as “strategic pricing”— the decision by a ﬁrm on where to position itself along the low-cost versus product differentiation scale. Within a strategic pricing framework, ﬁrms still have the task of establishing and managing the pricing of individual items; this latter task is the realm of revenue management. Thus, revenue management is concerned with optimizing pricing at the operational level. Economics suggests that, in competitive markets, prices are set by the interplay of supply and demand: companies do not set prices; the “market” sets them. The stock exchanges are certainly an example; the interplay of buyers and sellers establishes the market price, and potential market participants decide whether they are willing to transact at the speciﬁed price. Other auction markets, such as eBay, also operate in this manner. In most business environments, however, price setting by the seller occurs. Even in situations that would seem to be nearly perfectly competitive—the price of gasoline in a community or the price of a gallon of milk at a retail store—we observe variation among sellers, suggesting that revenue management decisions are at work. In some cases, the supply-demand approach to pricing is viewed negatively, as in the case when retailers substantially increase the price of essential products during a hurricane or blizzard. The latter situation suggests that revenue management is not merely an internal function but also one that takes the short-term and long-term reaction of customers into account. In the long run, prices need to cover costs and provide a satisfactory return on investment. On a day-to-day operational basis, however, many decisions need to be made in pricing, promotions, and product offerings. Revenue management provides the theory and the oversight structure for these activities.

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Pricing and Revenue Management
Price setting is one of the key dimensions of revenue management, with the ultimate objective being proﬁtability. Consider the following threepart relationship: Prices → Revenues → Proﬁts The linkage between prices and revenues is volume. How much can be sold at given prices? The linkage between revenues and proﬁts (income) is expenses. What are the costs of generating these revenues? The revenue management function involves the simultaneous consideration of all three elements. Setting prices has become a complex area, one that merits the attention of top management. Price setting should also be on the radar screen of ﬁnancial managers, who are best positioned to analyze the effects of price changes on proﬁts.

The Role of Marketing
One may ask, is revenue management not the role of marketing management? Certainly marketing deals with issues of pricing, promotion, channel selection, product mix, brand management, and the like. Marketing management initiates, and is expert in, many of the techniques for generating sales. But the task is not simply to generate more sales. The task is to generate more sales in ways that enhance the current and long-term proﬁtability of the enterprise. At this point the role of marketing and ﬁnancial management must be balanced. Financial management must analyze whether revenue enhancement measures will likely be profitable. One has only to look at some of the industries that have been major proponents of revenue management to see the relevance of linking revenue growth to proﬁt growth. The airline industry was the originator of revenue management in the form of differential pricing, yet most ﬁrms in that industry chronically struggle with proﬁtability. The automobile industry has also been a heavy user of revenue management techniques, and similarly has struggled historically with proﬁtability. Auto manufacturers and distributors have used rebates, special ﬁnancing, and other differential pricing tactics as revenue management tools. Clearly, knowing how to build sales is only a part of the challenge; one needs to build

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sales proﬁtably. The old humorous saying that “we lose money on every transaction, but we make it up on volume” is applicable here. Although this may sound convincing, it has never been a prescription for success.

Relation to Cost Management
Cost management has long been a recognized ﬁeld in accounting and ﬁnance. The roots of cost accounting go back to the earliest days of the Industrial Revolution, as techniques such as product costing and standard cost systems were developed and reﬁned. Cost accounting evolved into cost management over the past 25 years as new techniques such as activity-based costing, target costing, and throughput analysis were introduced and gained signiﬁcant acceptance. Though revenue management deals with the “other half ” of the income process, it has received much less attention. Cost management has its foundations in industrial engineering and in pioneering work by major companies. Later techniques tended to come from academics, consultants, and international (especially Japanese) practices. As a result, cost management has become an integrated and signiﬁcant aspect of ﬁnancial management. In recent years, cost management has expanded into the concept of supply chain management. Revenue management had its foundations in the practices of one industry and then spread to other industries with similar economic characteristics. Much of the literature is found in the operations research ﬁeld, where modeling is common, and in the journals of specialized industries, primarily the travel and hospitality industries. Though revenue management has obvious implications for ﬁnancial management, its presence to date in the accounting and ﬁnance literatures is minimal. Revenue management may be viewed as the complement of supply chain management. Whereas the latter involves a ﬁrm’s interaction with its suppliers, revenue management involves the interactions with customers. Managing the income-generating processes of the organization is a key task of management generally and ﬁnancial management in particular, requiring an understanding of both cost management and revenue management.

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Revenue Growth Versus Cost Reduction as a Strategy
Cost management tries to enhance income through cost reductions; revenue management seeks to enhance income through sales growth. Is there a best way to enhance income, both in the short term and in the long term? The message of the importance of revenue growth has been proclaimed for many years. A 1996 USA Today article reports on a survey of 150 executives of Fortune 1000 companies by Deloitte & Touche.3 Cost reduction, or reengineering and restructuring, was said to be “out” while getting bigger was “in.” Revenue growth of more than 15% annually from 1989 to 1994 was associated with employment growth of 1.6 million jobs, while revenue growth below 5% annually was associated with employment declines of 2.9 million jobs. Clearly, revenue growth and cost (employment) reduction did not go together, though it is not clear which was the cause and which was the effect. A 2001 Wall Street Journal article observed that one should focus on the value (revenue) created by labor, not just the cost of labor. Companies need to assess the extent to which employees enhance product quality, value, or customer service.4 Although this message has been delivered for years, there is still a strong tendency toward cost reduction. In a 2010 Newsweek cover story, Stanford University professor Jeffrey Pfeffer comes out strongly against layoffs, perhaps the most common form of cost reduction employed by organizations.5 His lead example relates to the airline industry immediately following the attacks of September 11, 2001. Flights were initially suspended, and upon resumption, airlines were faced with considerable passenger reluctance and a weak economy. All U.S. airlines but one announced layoffs numbering in the tens of thousands. Southwest Airlines, the only domestic carrier to forgo layoffs, has subsequently succeeded where competitors have faltered. Pfeffer points out that Southwest is “now the largest domestic U.S. airline and has a market capitalization bigger than all its domestic competitors combined.”6 Harvard University professor N. J. Mass found that, even though cost reduction initially seemed more valuable, revenue growth is likely to have a stronger long-term impact.7 In the short term, the appeal of cost reduction is that nearly 100% of the cost savings can drop to the bottom line as improved net income, assuming cost reduction does not impact sales.

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Depending on the industry, as little as 7% to 10% of enhanced revenue may show up as income, provided the revenue growth has not come at the expense of prices and proﬁt margins. Mass notes that in the longer run there is a limit to cost reduction and companies can only cut so far. In contrast, revenue improvements tend to compound over time, such that 1% of margin improvement achieved through cost reduction had about equal value to 1% revenue growth that persisted over time. His research further suggests that, over time, one percentage point of revenue growth could enhance ﬁrm value as much as 6 to 10 percentage points of margin improvement driven by cost savings. Empirical market research has tended to support Mass’s conclusions about revenue growth. Studies have found that investors react more positively to revenue growth than to cost savings.8 This response was especially pronounced for growth companies, since investors reacted negatively if revenues declined, even if proﬁts had increased due to cost reductions.9 Business experiences also bear out the importance of revenue growth and the dangers of cost cutting. In 2007, electronics retailer Circuit City announced it would cut costs by laying off its 3,400 highest-paid sales associates. Presumably these individuals were Circuit City’s most experienced and most successful sales personnel. Customers were frustrated to ﬁnd fewer and less knowledgeable sales personnel in the stores in a business where technical advice and assistance are critical to selling the product. Sales rapidly declined; Circuit City ﬁled for bankruptcy in 2008 and closed all its stores the following year.10 In 2007, prior to the ﬁnancial meltdown, a Wall Street Journal story about Citigroup indicated investors’ and analysts’ desire for the company to show higher revenue growth.11 In 2004, Coca-Cola Enterprises attributed its higher proﬁts to revenue management techniques, such as rate increases, contributions from package mix, and volume growth.12 McKinsey & Company consultants Michael Marn and Robert Rosiello, in a 1992 Harvard Business Review article, reported the proﬁt effects of a 1% change in each of four components of operating proﬁt—price, volume, variable cost, and ﬁxed cost—given that other components remained unchanged. Based on average data for over 2,400 companies, they concluded that a 1% increase in price (with no volume decrease or cost changes) would have the largest effect, an operating proﬁt improvement of 11.1%. A similar decrease in variable cost, on average, would

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increase operating proﬁt by 7.8%. Less effective would be 1% growth in volume (yielding a 3.3% operating proﬁt increase) and 1% decrease in ﬁxed cost (2.3% operating proﬁt increase).13 Their research clearly establishes revenue (price) management as critical to proﬁt improvement. Michael Treacy, in Double-Digit Growth: How Great Companies Achieve It—No Matter What, states that most companies know how to cut costs, but fewer know how to consistently grow revenues.14 He further points out three key cycles for a company’s success. One is economic, that a growing company tends to have better ﬁnancial results and lower capital costs. A second is momentum, that a growing company attracts attention and builds customer conﬁdence. A third is opportunity: that growth leads to new products, new employment, and higher morale.15 Companies on the upside of these cycles will usually prosper, whereas those on the downside often decline further. The company that is actively growing its revenue is likely to be on the upside of these cycles, whereas a company focused on cost cutting is more likely to experience declining economic results, slowing momentum, and diminished opportunity and morale. Again, the message is that revenue growth, rather than cost reduction, is the key to long-term success. Indications from all sources suggest the importance of revenue management, and its likely advantage over cost reduction, in achieving long-term ﬁnancial success. It is critical that the ﬁnancial executive be aware of and knowledgeable about revenue management techniques to properly guide the company.

Role of Financial Analysis
Financial analysis techniques play an important role in implementing and evaluating revenue management. These techniques help analyze strategies in advance and provide a guide to making efﬁcient decisions with regard to revenue issues. They also help report and analyze the success of revenue management initiatives after implementation. Accounting information is a key source of detailed information for the analysis of revenue management initiatives; data involving various dimensions of each transaction need to be captured at the transaction point. Various techniques are used to analyze the expected outcomes of revenue management approaches. Such techniques, drawn from management

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accounting, economics, and other areas, are reviewed in chapters 3 and 4, and are incorporated throughout the book.

Overview of the Book
Following this introductory chapter, chapter 2 discusses the history and development of revenue management, its early applications in a few industries, and its subsequent application in a broader range of contexts. Chapters 3 and 4 focus on the tools needed to analyze revenue management proposals and to help decide if the ensuing growth in revenue will be proﬁtable. Chapters 5 and 6 discuss two relatively recent management concepts with special relevance to revenue management. The CAM-I capacity model, discussed in chapter 5, integrates an understanding of an organization’s capacity and its deployment to the potential for revenue generation. The theory of constraints, explored in chapter 6, also integrates well with revenue management via the focus on growth of throughput. Chapter 7 begins a discussion of the broad ﬁeld of pricing, the key to revenue management. The subsequent chapter discusses and analyzes various revenue management techniques. Chapter 9 presents the concept of customer value, and chapter 10 explores the ﬁeld of customer reaction to revenue management. Chapter 11 discusses how to determine the value of customers, and chapter 12 summarizes some of the techniques for analyzing and making revenue management decisions, including the role of revenue management in difﬁcult economic times, when pressures for cost reduction often dominate. Chapter 13 concludes with comments on the future of revenue management.